BANGKOK — A night market in downtown Bangkok frequented by tourists and locals alike will close permanently after Monday.
Artbox night market is open for the last night after holding daily night markets for about a year. The formerly popular shopping spot has had to close due to a lack of tourist visitors amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to owner Phanarat Muennoi.
“It’s such a huge loss since I invested a lot in this. Covid hit us really hard. We lost our major customer base,” Phanarat said by phone Monday. “We tried to keep it going for five months but we couldn’t. After the hotels closed there were just no tourists, and the vendors left one by one…I didn’t want visitors to be disappointed.”
Phanarat said she hopes Artbox can live on in its original form that it debuted in 2015 – that is, markets held a few times a year for a few days at a time – but has no plans of when or where the next event will be yet.
“I will try to make good events again, but we can’t continue doing this market. See you again in event form,” Phanarat said.
